Epic Battle vs the Horde

[Gith]

Continuing my first Byzantine campaign (hard, early). I made it up to 1230, all the while preparing for the impending mongol invasion. So it happens, and I move all available forces into Khazar. Ends up being roughly 13000 vs 5600, their advantage.

On a quick side note, I was disguistingly impressed with Avar Nobles. One unit was cut down to 15, but slew 463 mongols, most of that heavy cavalry.

I fought from 11:45pm to 2am. In that time, I slew roughly 4,000 of them including the king and lost about 400 on my part. I was hoping for a bridge battle, but no luck. After I killed a large number of them, I withdrew due to fighting too many horse archers and having no archer units or light cav on the field to combat them. End results being a lot of them dead, the mongol horde broken. The next turn I wiped them all out in an auto calc battle. No way I was going to put up with killing 9,000 of them and face another 2 hour battle.

Just thought I'd share https://forums.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

btw...I'm LOVING the Byzantines. I regret not playing them earlier.

[katank]

yeah, their unit roster is awesome.

[RollingWave]

Espically on the flat khazar....

My more impressive fight was running out of arrow after the initial fight (and no light cav... though a lot of AHCs)... then they start reinforcing with all the mass horse archers... so i hide in the trees and waited for a few hours while fighitng off the occasional heavy cav charge.... it was nerv breaking not just for the mens taking considerable losses but for me too XD ... need to keep surpressing the urge to charge out to a sure death vs mass horse archers...

[katank]

if you only play bridge defense and castle defense, then you fail to appreciate the incredible power of the mongol forces.

can you imagine facing them on a flat map without trees?

facing them in flat khazar was bad enough but at least it's wooded.

16 units of MHC pouring at you is a fearsome sight indeed.

[Gith]

I was never too impressed with MHC, but I would hate fighting on open ground just because of the MHA.

[katank]

that's because you have fought too many bridge or castle battles when they can only charge your spears or polearms head on.

wait until open ground and they raw overpower you with some units and then maneuver to flank/rear the rest and soon your entire army routing under the shock.

[castle]

I always take on the horde in Kiev as it is always a bridge battle.I like to start with a load of catapults and blast them as they stack up trying to cross the bridge.

[Servius]

I don't know. In almost every battle where I'm defending I set up on a hilltop and/or corner of the map and bunker a host of archers behind a spear wall. When I faced the Horde I just set the spear formation to spread to reduce missile damage, all the while ripping them up with my archers. If their heavy cav charged my spears would close ranks and pin them, then I'd send in Halbs or Bills to flank and shred them.

I would definitely hate to face them in a flat line in the middle of the map though. That's why I never do that.

[katank]

why not fight the bridge battles in Kiev? you can hold nice position withough needing to turtle in the corner.